The eyes of the orc women staring at the new concrete watchtower were confused, hopeful, and betrayed to anyone who was watching that they were rethinking their current positions.

  It took only a minute before the first orc woman, Tenia, spoke up:

  "I will give my levels. I am tired of cleaning clothes and running errands. I want to do something that matters." Her eyes never left the watchtower.

  Elder Onka frowned and addressed Tenia with sharp words:

  "What we do matters, young Tenia. Do not be so quick to put our work down as you cast off our ways."

  Tenia looked as if she had been struck with lightning and quickly responded in a much more submissive tone:

  "I am sorry, Elder. I did not mean it like that. I am simply not made for the work we women do regularly. I simply meant that I wished for work where I could feel like I as an individual made a difference."

  Onka relented, and her frown disappeared. It was replaced with a kind expression, as if the previous conversation was already forgotten. Jod and Jenna understood the role Onka played in the society of women in the settlement.

  She had to be the one to hold the others back. Elder Onka herself knew that the women were tired and bored of the work they did. Not all of them, of course, but a big enough minority that it had become an issue over the last centuries.

  They did not have enough work to go around, but if all of them gave up their work to try something new, it would collapse their society. Thus, she had to be strict and conservative.

  Elder Onka spoke up again, this time addressing the group.

  "Do any of you feel like Tenia? It is okay. I agree that this idea of the mushroom is worth trying. As long as not all of us try it at once, we can then plan for the future."

  The group started speaking with each other; all of them had come with a close friend of theirs to Onka's tent. Now in front of the watchtower, they all divided up, and 18 orc women, along with Tenia, agreed to Jod's proposal.

  Jod smiled at his mother, happy that he finally had achieved Mafu's mission. Jenna had been helpful in the early stages, speaking with Onka and the women. The women ruled their own tents; the opinions of men were lower only inside their tents.

  Therefore Jod, who was a man, even though of a different species, had no weight behind his words at first. Jenna had helped him get a foot in the door. Jod thanked his mother and then led the group of orc women over to Mafu's fungal pool.

  Jod stopped in front of the entrance to the poolroom. The entrance had been decorated with fragrant flowers around it, trying to hide the smell that had emanated when the parasites and Hollow corpses had been examined.

  Toqlan had been waiting there, as Jod had contacted him beforehand. He quickly checked the potential of the 18 women and gave a silent nod to Jod when he was done. All of them passed.

  "Mafu, I have brought 18 orc women who wish to give their level and try their new lives as craftsmen."

  Jod tried to speak with a more regal tone when he spoke out loud to Mafu. He felt it important to maintain the fact that Mafu was the real ruler, at least in front of the people. He knew Mafu did not really want to rule and wished for Jod to do it himself, but he had not fully accepted that yet.

  "Ah, welcome. Do you wish to begin now, or do you want some time to prepare?"

  The feeling and smell of rotting leaves and damp dirt washed over the orc women who were contacted by Mafu, and their previously hopeful eyes lost their shine. Jod inwardly cursed; he had forgotten about the feeling since Mafu got to level 50.

  Tenia stepped forward, and while she looked slightly horrified, her voice did not tremble:

  "I wish to do it now. I volunteer to be the first to give my levels."

  "Good, then enter the fungal pool. I will take your levels and help you become whatever craftsman you wish."

  "I wish to become a blacksmith. If those sticks can build those buildings, I want to make them."

  "Very well, then enter."

  ---

  Mafu had taken the levels of 7 of the orc women, and it had gone better than he had thought.

  Tenia, the first orc to complete the procedure, was a headstrong and honest orc. Not that there were many who weren't, but she was extremely so.

  Once she had entered the pool, it had been quite easy to remove all her levels and skills. Then the system had offered Mafu an unexpected gift.

  Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

  [Through the extraction of levels and skills, a new skill has been unlocked.]

  [Biological Remodeling Unlocked.]

  [Biological Remodeling] allows you to remodel any given skills or experience into new ones, to be given back to the target who gave you these skills or experience to begin with.

  Mafu was not prepared for that, but he had joyfully started trying to tweak the skills and experience of Tenia. After an hour, he had managed to put together three skills that fit what her new profession would be.

  It had been a lot of experimenting; the skills and experience of Tenia had been reduced when given up. It made sense; the system would not allow someone to completely recover their strength when starting over.

  Mafu had used all of Tenias's experience to reinforce the skills and, after the experimenting, arrived at these three skills:

  [Blacksmith's Eyes] Allows the user to appraise items made by a blacksmith. Allows one to easily find flaws and potential improvements.

  [Heat Absorption] Allows one to absorb heat and use it to refill one's stamina and mana. Can also be used to recover one's wounds, although at a slow pace.

  [Blacksmith's Patience] Allows the user to enter a trance while performing monotonous work. The longer a product is being worked on, the better the quality will become.

  Tenia awoke from the fungal pool and slowly got up out of it. She looked at her hands and her body and seemed as if in a daze. Then she spoke:

  "I did not expect to feel so weak. I guess I truly became level 1?"

  She had asked the question to the air, not really to Mafu. But Mafu responded anyway.

  "Yes. You will quickly regain your strength with the three new skills you now have."

  Tenia shuddered at Mafu's voice, but only for a second.

  "Then, where will I work as a blacksmith now?"

  "Exit to the surface; Jod will show you to where you will work with your fellow pioneers in this crafting endeavor."

  Tenia stood still for a while, then nodded and exited to the surface. The orc women who were waiting outside relaxed when they saw her exit. They had all been worried, as it had taken over an hour since she had entered the pool.

  "Tenia, how was it?!" one of the women asked her.

  Tenia thought about it for a few seconds and answered:

  "It is like a dreamless sleep. But you can feel yourself changing while sleeping. It is hard to describe, but it is not uncomfortable or painful."

  Once Tenia had answered a few more questions, the next orc was called down to the pool. All in all, seven of them would be changed today.

  Jod showed Tenia to an area of the settlement that had been set aside for the plan of blacksmithing. Akro was already there, experimenting on how to build forges. He had sat down as he heard Jod and Tenia approach, ready to meet his new colleagues.

  "Akro, this is Tenia. She will be your coworker today. I think that your experiments with the forges will go faster from today onwards," Jod said, with a smile.

  Tenia gave a quick polite bow to Akro. He was a child, but the hierarchal structure of orcs was still set in every orc's bones, and Akro was a man.

  Akro looked uncomfortable as well, so Jod spoke up.

  "In here, you are all craftsmen. There is no hierarchy here; no one here is above or below each other. Mafu said that since crafting can be dangerous, having a hierarchy can also lead to injuries. If you do not speak your mind, accidents can happen."

  Tenia looked at Jod with piercing blue eyes, which made Jod lose his train of thought for a moment, but then she nodded and broke eye contact.

  Jod stayed with Tenia and Akro for a while, making sure that they got off to a good start. The Akros project was currently making forges using the cordium metal Mafu had extracted. It was a heat-tolerant metal, and as such, should be used for inside forges.

  Once Akro and Tenia had become comfortable with each other, talking about the project, Jod excused himself and went back to the fungal pool.

  It would be a long day, introducing the orc women to their new work. But Jod continued his work happily, knowing that this was the beginning of their push against the Hollow. With metal weapons, the orcs' fighting power would increase immensely.

  With armor, they would suffer fewer injuries. And with the crafting of various items, life in the settlement would become much more comfortable.

  ---

  Mafu had tweaked the centipede dungeon over and over, trying to make the perfect dungeon. He had not succeeded in everything, and it annoyed him. He needed the dungeon to perform better so that the orcs could level faster.

  Then one day, he realized. Why not make more dungeons? Nothing said that he couldn't.

  So he started work on a new dungeon. He used the ants again, not wanting to make the entire dungeon using the management skills. The management skills were better for tweaking the dungeon rather than making one from scratch.

  This time as well, the dungeon was dug into the ground. As such, one would expect centipedes or other ground-type monsters to spawn. But he also allocated a lot of seeds and plants into the dungeon. None of them were poisonous, but a few of them were food plants.

  If the dungeon would spawn monsters that could be used as food, that would kill two birds with one stone.

  Mafus's plan did not work out that well; the system, it seems, would not allow him to take shortcuts. What spawned were both bug-type monsters and plant monsters. The plant monsters were stationary, growing fruits mainly used to lure the bug-type monsters. Then they ate the insects.

  Or, well, they decomposed them inside their large bulb. They had tentacle-like vines that reeled in their catch. The bugs were a perversion of a common housefly. Their bodies were the size of a human torso.

  On the fly's legs were sharp blade-like chitin spikes. The flies seemed to use their high flight speed to fly by their victims, cutting them over and over. It was a tricky enemy if you were too slow to react.

  The fruits of the plant monsters were edible, but not tasty. They smelled and tasted rotten even though they were fresh. Mafu theorized it was because the flies would be attracted by a rotten smell and taste.

  Mafu deemed this dungeon as a failure, but it would at the very least give experience to the orcs, so he put it to use. Jod and Parek entered first, as with the first dungeon, to check out how dangerous it was.

  Parek had only positive things to say about the dungeon, and Jod was not much different. This surprised Mafu.

  "Why do you like it? It is quite an annoying dungeon, no?" Mafu was of the opinion that both Jod and Parek were quintessential warriors. They enjoyed honest combat. The flies and the plants both fought with "underhanded" tactics.

  Parek answered for both of them:

  "It is somewhat annoying, yes. But it trains your reaction, your perception, and your readiness for combat at all times. The centipedes do fight like a warrior, head-on. But that is not what our enemies do. This dungeon trains something other than what the first one does. It is very useful for my warriors."

  Jod nodded along with Parek's explanation. Well, if they liked it, that was fine with Mafu. Happy that he had not failed like he thought, he started work on the third dungeon.